Justin Bieber, Young Thug, and Guarding the New Guard

“I need all building lights off, building lights off, building lights off,” the rapper Young Thug says as he directs the crowd at the PlayStation Theatre, in Times Square, an hour into his set. The crosshatched beams soon dim, followed by a large plasma screen cycling through images of Prince. The night has been a tribute of sorts—earlier, Thug had emerged sporting a flowing white blouse, lace gloves, and a microphone fixed with Prince’s “Love” symbol. “I need all the phone lights on, phone lights on, phone lights on,” Thug continues in rhythm, and the audience raises a constellation of white flashlights shining from their phones. A few girls toward the front have outfitted their phones with cases that glow around the entire frame, like a camera-equipped vanity mirror. “What the fuck kind of light is that?” Thug asks, as if he has spotted a device from the future. “O.K., now, look,” he continues. “I don’t care if it was your mother, father, sister, brother, grandma, grandpa, cousin, auntie, uncle, ancestor—someone did a lot of shit for you to live this lifestyle.” A flutter of piano chords swells from the d.j.’s laptop, and Thug tears into his crossover hit, “Lifestyle”: “I got a moms, bitch, she got a moms, bitch,” he raps in his signature shrill warble. “I got sisters and brothers to feed.”